I Have To Go
by Jed Rhodes
Summary: The Tenth Doctor didn't abort that fateful regeneration, after all. Can the Eleventh Doctor save the Earth? And will Rose Tyler accept regeneration a second time?
1. Chapter 1

Donna Noble, formerly temp of Cheswick, now TARDIS traveler, Rose Tyler, defending the Earth, and Captain Jack Harkness, the immortal leader of Torchwood Three, were witnessing the death of a brilliant man and the birth of a completely different one.

The Doctor had literally just been shot by the Daleks. Well, one Dalek. Same difference, and the Dalek responsible for the shooting was gone anyway, although the Daleks on the whole weren't, a fact which, to say the least, worried the combined population of the planet.

The Doctor's friends had dragged him into the TARDIS to, as Jack and Rose knew, although Donna was completely in the dark, regenerate. Rose knelt by the Doctor as they laid him down; although she knew perfectly well what was about to happen, accepting it was… less of a simple matter.

"What do we do? There must be some medicine or something!" Donna yelled, not understanding.

"Just step back. Rose!" Jack snapped at Rose, pulling her away. "Do as I say and stand back!"

His voice became more tender, softer, and he tried to comfort her. "He's dying and you know what happens next!"

"What do you mean?" Donna yelled – yelling at the world because no one was listening, of course. The Doctor winced in pain – clearly, he was trying to keep it under control.

"But he can't!" Rose yelled. "Not now! I came all this way!"

* * *

The Doctor heard that and two things came into his head, two very different and opposing thoughts.

Thought numero uno. 'I have to stop myself. There has to be some way I can prevent myself regenerating.'

'Why?' the second thought asked.

'Because Rose doesn't want me to.'

'So? Rose knows what regenerating is. Donna's gonna be the one to convince.'

'But Rose is so upset, can't you see…?'

These two thoughts waged war with one another, each trying to get the point across. Finally, a decision had to be reached, and he raised his hand, gazing at it, confirming the worst.

It glowed gold.

'The hand. Siphon the regenerative energy off into the hand.'

'Too risky. Too many variables. Too much in the way of chance and happenstance, and that's not counting the possibility of metacrisis. Regeneration is tried and trusted.'

'I don't want to go.'

'Today, we don't have a real choice. I'm sorry.'

'I know.'

* * *

"It's starting!" the Doctor warned his friends.

"Here we go!" Jack yelled. He pulled Rose away and gathered them to him, watching as the Doctor brought himself to standing. "Good luck, Doctor!"

"Will someone please tell me what is going on?" Donna yelled.

Rose tried to calm herself. "When he's dying, his body, it repairs itself, it changes..." The façade broke. She couldn't allow it. She loved this Doctor, and she couldn't deal with him leaving her. Not again. Not after the last time. He had been so different. "But you can't!" she yelled, as if the very act of yelling would overcome the natural course of the biology of a Time Lord.

"I'm sorry, it's too late," the Doctor told her. And then, the last words.

"I don't want to, but… I have to go."

And then, the fire. A golden glow that burned across the human onlookers vision, forcing them to look away. A man let his old life burn away, and a new one take it's place.

* * *

She didn't want to open her eyes. When she opened them, he would be gone, and she would have lost him forever… and after she had come _so_ far...

"Right then," the new voice came.

She definitely didn't want to open her eyes. No sir. She really didn't want to open her…

"Legs! Still got legs!"

She opened her eyes.

A young man in the Doctor's suit was examining his arms and legs and fingers, commenting on them. His hair was long, his face less careworn, his eyes blue and bright.

"Ok, nose – I've… had worse, chin – blimey… hair, hair… I'm a girl? No! No, wait – I'm not a girl…"

He was speaking very quickly. And then he stopped, and looked at his companions. And smiled.

"Donna Noble!" he ran right up to her and hugged her. "Oh, you, you brilliant Donna you! You're brilliant! Amazing! Magnificent! Molto Bene! Oh hang on…"

He came away and frowned.

"No, not liking the Italian. Maybe, Sehr Gut? Is German really my thing? Maybe just 'really good' - I mean, Earth is Earth, what's one language to another, eh? English is Germanic in Orion. Admittedly, lot of French in theremtoo..." he babbled, looking at his companions for feedback which was studiously not forthcoming, and then he was frowning at them.

"What's wrong with you all?" he asked very seriously. Before they could reply, the lights went out. The Doctor looked up.

"I've forgotten something," he declared. "Something important."

"Daleks?" Jack suggested. The Doctor laughed and jumped and clapped and pointed at Jack's face.

"Yes! Yes, the Daleks! I remember! Oh wait…"

His face fell, and assumed a serious face, and then he looked at the console. He walked over, and flicked the defunct switches. He flicked them again. Then he looked at his companions. Specifically, at Rose.

"Right," he said. "I guess we're about to arrive at Dalek HQ. And I'm not exactly in a fit state to fight them, what with the fact that I'm kinda still going – I could fall over any minute, or start belching gold, glittery regeneration… stuff. So, here's the plan…"

He grabbed Jack and Donna by the shoulder – ignoring Rose completely.

"Jack, you stay in here, I don't trust the Daleks as far as I could throw 'em. If they try to destroy the TARDIS – and they might – then press that blue button there…" he pointed at a control, "and the TARDIS will use the HADS – works on a separate system, so it should be fine."

Jack nodded. Professional, as always. The new Doctor smiled, and turned to Donna.

"Right – yes, it's still me, and if you want proof, wedding dress, Wilf, Martian boy, Robot Santa's, and the rest," he said, rattling the list off on his fingers.

Donna looked right at him, and then laughed.

"You look terrible," she said at last, and laughed. The Doctor laughed too.

"So all you have to do is follow me out, and stand still," he finished. "Sorry I can't think of a better idea, but you're clever, you'll figure something out, I just know it."

And then, he turned his new, blue gaze on Rose. Rose, who looked at him with such reluctance.

"Only one question," he said, slowly. "Do you still trust me?"

She looked right at him. The answer didn't come. He looked right at her. No answer. He waited.

"Well?" he asked. 


	2. Chapter 2

For a long moment – the longest moment – the new Doctor – and blimey, wasn't he young? – stared at Rose, waiting for an answer. Donna and Jack looked from one to another, Jack looking concerned, but Donna looking more and more annoyed. This continued for maybe a minute and a half, until finally, Donna snapped.

"Oh c'mon!" she yelled suddenly. "He's the same bloke. If he's got a box which is bigger on the inside that travels around in time and space, the fact that he changes his face isn't that impossible to believe!"

Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth, turned to her and snapped right back. "It isn't that!"

"Then what is it?" Donna yelled at her. "Cos if that ain't the problem sweetheart, I don't see what the problem is!"

The Doctor leaned back slightly, his brand new eyebrows twitching in a way that Jack noted as being slightly… bemused. Jack wandered over to him as the two women continued to shout, Rose going into the thousand and one reasons why it was hard for her to accept the new Doctor (which came down to the fact that, although she happily accepted that he was the Doctor, she found the last one sexy and didn't much like the look of this one, as well as the fact that she felt it was a bad time to change, given her last experience of the thing, and added to that, a little bit of jealousy of Martha Jones and Donna Noble and a healthy dose of possessiveness. Typical Rose really) and Donna returning the shouts threefold with the same argument, over and over; he was the same man, and just because he looked different, that was no reason to treat him differently.

"Was Rose always this shouty?" the new Doctor asked Jack in a stage whisper that neither woman noticed.

"I dunno," Jack said. "Never got her angry. What about Donna?"

"Oh, definitely," the Doctor said, a smile forming on the new face. "Always shouty. Been very helpful, in point of fact, scared aliens off a lot. One time, there was the race of megalomaniac aliens who couldn't stand loud noises. I just got Donna angry at me, in the same room as their leadership council. They surrendered to the Shadow Proclamation in five minutes."

"Ha!" Jack laughed. "Wish I'd been there."

"Yeah…" the Doctor said. The argument wasn't cooling down. At all. "Blimey, no idea they could go on this much."

"I figure we've got some time before we get to the crucible," Jack said. "Wanna go change?"

He figured the Doctor might like the chance to change. But he wasn't expecting the Doctor to laugh, clap, and jump up and down, before bolting out of a door. Rose and Donna stopped arguing to watch him go.

"Where's he going?" Rose asked.

"To change," Jack replied.

"What, again?" Donna said. "Once wasn't enough?"

"Means the clothes," Rose said, slightly irritably. "But why?"

Jack shrugged. "Look, I'm going to go after him. You guys call when we get to where we're going."

"Which is where, exactly?" Donna asked, hands going to hips.

"The Dalek Crucible," Jack said, grimly. The two women looked at each other uneasily, and Jacks eyebrows furrowed into a frown. "Anyway, ladies, I'd better make sure he doesn't put himself into a tutu."

With that, Jack nodded at them and walked out. Donna looked at Rose, Rose looked at Donna.

"He'd put himself in a tutu?" Donna asked.

* * *

The Doctor was in the middle of a great pile of clothes that reached all the way up to the ceiling – it was almost as though he'd buried himself in it.

"You sure you should be exerting yourself so much, Doctor?" Jack asked. "I mean, you have just regenerated… and it was a Dalek shot…"

The Doctor's reply came out muffled, but to Jack, it sounded vaguely like a Carlantian swear word.

"No need for that," he said. The Doctor popped his head out; still wearing the blue shirt.

"Look, Jack, don't mollycoddle me," he said. "Not needed, yeah? I have done this before; nine times before today, in fact. And each time, I came out of it alive, and… relatively, sane. I need a mirror…"

"Doctor," Jack said, "I'm only saying you need to watch yourself. We can't afford for you to be knocked out or unworkable; we need you against the Daleks."

"Pfft, Daleks," the Doctor said. Then he stopped. "Oh yeah, Time War. Oh." His face suddenly stopped, frozen into an expression of half sadness, half sort of – blankness. Then he went "pfft" again. "Metal gits. I'll sort 'em. Take a while, mind, but I will. Just need you to stay in here – they will try to wreck the TARDIS, I know it."

"Why?" Jack asked.

"Because TARDIS's were weapons in the war," the Doctor said. "Never used mine in that capacity, but I heard of TARDIS's used as guns, suicide bombs…"

"Seriously?"

"Time Lords equals desperate to survive," the Doctor said solemnly, disappearing into the pile again. When he spoke again, it sounded vaguely like he was saying "really, insanely, monstrously desperate," although it could have been more expletives in Carlantian. Then the Doctor popped out, wearing a new outfit. Jack's eyes boggled.

"Whaddya think?" the Doctor asked. The outfit was a long coat in various bright, clashing colours, with stripey yellow trousers and a white shirt, with a question mark pullover.

"Um… no," Jack said bluntly. "Sorry Doctor, try harder."

"Ugh, Jack," the Doctor said, going back into the pile. "You are such a party pooper!"

"Someone's gotta be the voice of reason around here," Jack said.

"Yes," the Doctor's muffled voice agreed. "I understand that perfectly well. Intelligent stuff. But, the voice of reason, you? Yeah right."

Jack rolled his eyes. 


	3. Chapter 3

Tweed jacket, bow tie, black trousers and boots. The bow tie was a spotted clip on number ("I'll get a new one eventually, but this one's fine!") and the tweed was a little short on the arms. Under this, the Doctor wore a waistcoat of contrasting tweed with a watch chain, and stuffed in the top pocket of this was a toothbrush. On his head of thick hair, he wore a fedora, Indiana Jones style.

It was a strange ensemble.

He stood looking at this in the mirror, his face switching between not-sure-disgust to love-it-it's-amazing. Finally, he looked at Jack.

"Well?" he asked. "Whaddya think?"

Jack didn't want to tell him the truth. He hesitated for a long moment.

"Is it the bow tie?" the Doctor put in, then he went 'pfft. "What am I on about? Bow ties are cool. It's the fedora."

He took the hat off and threw it in a random direction, before looking at Jack and grinning.

"Well?" he said. Jack um-ed and ah-ed for a moment, but was spared by the head of Donna Noble popping round a corner.

"Oi, you two, we're here!" she yelled. Then she caught sight of the Doctor, and frowned. "What are you wearing?"

The Doctor snapped into action, running out towards the console room. Jack and Donna followed him, looking at Jack, who refused to meet her eyes.

* * *

When they got to the console room, Rose looked at the Doctor with incredulity, but he ignored it, and went right to work. The Daleks were demanding the Doctor's presence.

"Right, Jack, stay here, and if they try to hurt the ship, like I said, blue button, HADS," he babbled. "You two, come with me, we'll do the babble thing. The Daleks might want to kill me, but… and it's a big but, mind – Davros'll want a word, and I'm guessing they'll do what he says." He stopped for a moment, looking grim. "Right then. On my lead."

"Why do we have to go out?" Rose said, her tone accusatory. "You told me once that nothing could get through the door!"

"And the extrapolator shields…" Jack added.

"Dalek's tech nullified those," the Doctor said, waving his hands and wiggling his new fingers. He looked at those briefly. "Ooh, fingers. Sorry," he shook his head and looked at his friends. "The door is wood. Literally, just wood." He muttered under his breath, "continuity between outside and inside. Should've known it was a bad idea. Anyway."

He fingered his lapel, pulled out the toothbrush and threw it on the console.

"Won't need that. Right."

He turned to the door. He walked over to the door. He turned to his friends.

"This moment needs a speech," he said, awkwardly. He um-ed and ah-ed for a moment, then wiggled his fingers and shook his head, and shrugged. "Right. Off we go."

"No speech?" Donna asked.

"New head, speeches aren't its thing," the Doctor replied. They walked out, Jack standing by the console as the door closed.

Roses face had looked troubled.

* * *

The Doctor stepped out into the light, and faced the Daleks down, his new clothes jarring slightly for those who walked with him. Behind him was Donna Noble, and Rose Tyler. Rose still looked a little sullen and upset, and Donna looked scared, but the Doctor was smiling. New man. Without fear.

"'Ello, fella's," the Doctor said. "How are we? All happy? All smiles? Maybe not, Davros didn't give you faces. Conformist society. Bit boring really. Plus, how do you tell which Dalek is talking? Apart from the flashy light things of course."

The Daleks watched him like a hawk, if you could apply that to creatures whose natural irises were not even visible. Then, finally, after the Doctor had finished babbling, a big, red Dalek spoke.

"You have regenerated, Doctor." The tone was suspicious, as if the Dalek couldn't believe what it was seeing.

"Oh, yeah well, that's your fault," the Doctor said, pointing at the Dalek with a very serious expression on his face. "You've been training your grunts to shoot straight. Clever, but I gotta say, I'm nostalgic for the good old days, where Daleks missed each other in great big shoot outs to the death over which side had the nicer paint job..."

"Silence!" the red Dalek said. The Doctor grinned.

"You must be the supreme one," he said. "All hail the great big red fella, although gotta admit mate," he added, tilting his head back and looking at the ceiling, "your ride is pathetic. I mean, I saw it, coming in. It's the Death Star. You know it, I know it…"

"I said silence!" the Dalek Supreme screeched. "You are the Doctor. You are the enemy of the Daleks!

"Yeah, I am," the Doctor smiled. "And you know what? I'm proud to say that. Proud of it."

The Dalek seemed to narrow it's light at him. He continued unabated. "And you know why? Because you are _antilife_, that's why. Abhorrent to creation. A stain. Parasites."

"You mock us Doctor," the Supreme Dalek said, "but you will know the truth before the end." The Supreme turned its eyestalk towards the TARDIS, and the light narrowed.

"You want that?" the Doctor asked, turning to look at it. "You want my ship?"

"It is a weapon," the Supreme Dalek said.

"It's defunct," the Doctor said, his grin gone. "You've seen to that."

"You cannot be allowed access to your weapon," the Supreme Dalek continued. "It will be exterminated!"

And then, the TARDIS was dropped down a trap door. The Doctor's eyes widened and he watched it plummet, and he looked down the trapdoor with eyes wide open.

"Blimey!" he said at last. "You've gone all Scooby Doo! Next thing you know, it'll be like we're removing the top of your head and finding smugglers. Or homicidal dwarfs…"

That was definitely not the reaction the Supreme Dalek had been expecting.

* * *

Jack stood by the button. He couldn't hear the Doctor's conversation at all, but he guessed it was the usual "Daleks are supreme" gibberish. He was glad he wasn't out there to hear it; he'd probably have snapped and shot them.

Suddenly, there was a lurch, and the ship started shaking. He knew it was motion of some kind, and it felt like downwards motion. When it stopped, he tried to find the button, and managed to – just as the roundels started exploding. He swore, and pressed the button, and the rotor started moving…

* * *

The Doctor grinned when the ship vanished – good old Jack, doing right what he was supposed to be doing. Then the Doctor put on a sombre face and turned to the Supreme Dalek. Not that Daleks could read facial expressions, but still.

"You are going to regret doing that, Supreme Dalek," he said. "Really, really regret that."

"Take them to the Vault," the red Dalek said, unconcerned. "They are the playthings of Davros now."

As they were led out, Donna turned to the Doctor. The last thing the Skaroan monsters heard was a bemused voice asking:

"Stavros? Harry Enfield is a Dalek?" 


	4. Chapter 4

**It's been ages since I've updated, and it really shouldn't have been. I can but apologise.**

Davros looked the Doctor up and down, and smiled subtly.

"You have changed again, Doctor," he said, his voice soft and subtle, menacing. It had been, the Doctor remembered, many years since that voice had plagued him last. The Time War had been Davros' chance to attempt to mess about with the Nightmare Child - about the nastiest anomaly in Stellar History; a sentient monstrosity that ate the nightmares of anything sentient near it. It had been dormant for millennia when Davros had messed about with it, an it had taken all the Doctor's ingenuity to prevent it from awakening - but not before Davros had flown straight into it's jaws. Apparently Dalek Caan had somehow circumvented everything it it's way to rescue it's creator.

"You seem to have trouble hanging onto a form," the mad Kaled scientist added, a comment which brought a sad memory to the Doctor's mind. _Your appearance is as inconstant as your intelligence._ Just another step on the road to the war.

"Yeah," the Doctor said, ignoring those thoughts and looking around at the Vault - interesting name, no doubt if e hadn't regenerated or had been more lucid he would have commented on it - from inside the containment beam. "One of those Dalek Grunts of yours managed a pot shot. Gotta congratulate you on that, by the way. Time was when a Dalek couldn't hit the side of a barn when they were in it."

Davros moved up to the Doctor slowly.

"Is it painful, dying and being reborn, Doctor?" he asked, softer still, almost as if speaking to a dear friend or love one. _Oh save me,_ the Doctor thought, _since when did all my old enemies go sentimental? The Master gives me bed and board for a year and now this..._ "Does the pain course through you, even now?"

The Doctor looked down at Davros, boredom in the young features. He tried to look cold - but he was still getting used to the new face so it came off as quizzically petulant. "What do you care?"

For a long moment, Davros was silent. "I am concerned, Doctor, that you will be… unfit," the scientist finally conceded, looking up at him with an expression closer to worry than the Doctor had ever seen.

"Me? Fit?" the Doctor snapped, suddenly feeling angry, and not understanding why. "Course I'm fit. Fit as a fiddle. Fit as a fiddler. Fit as ten fiddlers. Why do you care?"

"I want you to bear witness to my final victory," the Kaled said. "I do not wish you to be unable to witness it. For that to happen would be... disappointing. Your intelligence is, after all, one of few on a par with my own, and as such, only you can truly appreciate the mastery of my great triumph."

"You? Triumph? Ha!" the Doctor said, suddenly becoming animated. He looked down at Davros with barely concealed disgust. "You couldn't triump at stealing sweets from a child… argh!"

At this, the Doctor bent over slightly, his face contorted with pain. Both his companions called out to him, but he waved then off, and locked eyes with Davros. Then, slowly, he opened his mouth, and golden glittering energy exited it, like fairy dust sprinkled into the wind – and the Doctor smiled, coldly and disconcertingly.

"But... I'd hate to disappoint you. What is this triumph of yours then, Dave?" he asked.

Davros stared at him for a long moment, as if wondering whether he was sane. Then, finally, he told him.

* * *

Jack Harkness did not like having no control. Today was a day over which he had less than no control. He had nothing. No team. No anything.

But. He had his wits. His mind. It'd been a while since it had been those alone he had to go on, but he still had them.

He started by raiding the ship's stores; amazingly, the Doctor had a box, hidden away in a corner, with Cyber-rifles from the early Cyber wars (before the head-guns came into 'fashion', if you could say that about any Cyber weapon).

Jack tested them, and decided that, yes, they'd serve; they might just be powerful enough to crack open a Dalek. He then managed to find the Dalek wreckage he'd destroyed the last time he'd been on the TARDIS (not counting the little trip in the vortex) and made sure the gun worked well.

It did. He grinned.

Then he looked for a manual on how to pilot the TARDIS. He was less than successful at first, and when he found one, it was talking about a completely different console configuration. He swore, and started looking for the spare console room the Doctor mentioned before. Then, after another hour searching (during which he'd found a broom cupboard, three spare console rooms, including one that looked like a Victorian Mansion with a console in it) he found a spare console room with the configuration was the same as in the manual - the desktop theme described as "default". After a few false starts, the rotor started rising and falling.

He was on his way.

* * *

The concept that the Kaled scientist explained in chilling, scientific detail, was quite terrifying.

A Reality Bomb.

The culmination of centuries of thought and planning, now made real. A weapon to destroy all creation. A power to set the greatest of minds (in the mind's own opinion) above all other things; to destroy what the Gods had made would make him more powerful, surely? That was the theory. The Daleks had been essays in the craft, experimentation in the great design for destruction. War upon the Thals? Pfft. Conquest of the lesser species? A footnote. The Time War itself? Nothing more than the opening paragraphs of the great opus that Davros had created. Nothing compared to the power, the glory, the beauty of a universe of trillions upon trillions of life forms destroyed by the genius of one man.

Davros was insane all right.

The Doctor listened as Davros outlined the annihilation of the cosmos in glorious detail. He listened warily but intently. Rose Tyler's eyes widened in horror as the clues she had observed in a dozen universes came together. Donna Noble, although not understanding half of the science, understood the principal of "universe dying" and the rest was just noise to that single concept.

"Now…" Davros said, looking intently at the Doctor, whose face was unreadable. "Tell me Doctor; speaking as men of intellect and science rather than as mortal enemies; what do you think of my plan?"

The Doctor, casting off morality (oh, it almost felt too easy) and thinking in pure science, scratched his chin, and he looked up at the ceiling, as if thinking about the ceiling very carefully; it was (if one was to take the observation at face value) the most fascinating ceiling in the universe. "Well," he said at last, looking down from said ceiling (actually rather a boring ceiling - having only needed three seconds for scientific consideration of Davros's plan, the Doctor had actually found himself engrossed in wondering just how good a ceiling the ceiling was), "It's clever, I'll admit that. The morals of it aside, the actual science is sound enough. Why you'd want to wreck the whole cosmos when all that would be left is the Daleks though…"

"And what would be wrong with that?" Davros countered. "Daleks – when not engaged in war – are logical creatures. Knwloedge and wisdom are their only concern. They seek to understand the universe, unimpeded by the creatures that surround and infest it."

"Those creatures," the Doctor said, a hard edge entering his soft voice, "have as much right to exist as you, and certainly as much as the Daleks. And tell me – exactly how much knowledge would there be to learn if everything in creation was annihilated? What universe would be there to understand?"

Davros smiled.

"Only the knowledge of what exists beyond creation, Doctor," he said softly. "Beyond."

Beyond creation? The great unknown? The Doctor had wondered; was that not merely the void? But what if...

He did not allow those thoughts to continue but Davros smiled.

"As a man of science, I knew you would understand," he said.

* * *

Davros had left them alone after that. The Doctor looked over at Rose, who kept throwing him sideways glances but never met his eyes. He was worried now; why wasn't she talking to him, or looking at him? It wasn't like before. She knew about regeneration. This shouldn't have been the issue. An issue. At all.

He wondered briefly if the vague idea involving the hand that he had had would have worked. Then he dismissed it – too many consequences; if someone had touched it, it would have sprouted a completely new, half human version of himself (metacrisis, very complicated, very dangerous, "avoid at all costs," thank you Delox) and the person who had touched it might have died. Plus, he reflected, Ten might not have been sensible enough to leave someone in the TARDIS to press the HADS. He might've been bowled over by Rose's return, plus Jack being there. The old team back together again.

Not that she was giving the new Doctor much reason to be bowled over, so that might help. It was a worry. So, now, he decided to try and solve his problem.

"So…" he began, throwing a sideways glance at Rose before looking at Donna. "New me. What's the verdict?"

Rose threw him a filthy look, knowing his game (she'd spent too long with him not too) but Donna just looked puzzled.

"What you on about, new you? It's still you, innit? Just with a new face. Like plastic surgery." The look on her face made the Doctor want to laugh. Plastic surgery.

"Best way of describing it I ever heard," the Doctor said. "Instant plastic surgery. Jordan would love it."

Rose smirked. The Doctor noticed immediately and clapped, laughing as well.

"Was that," he asked, "a smirk?"

"No," came the answer at once, Rose's sullen face returning.

"I think it was," the Doctor smiled. "I think you smirked. I think you're cheering up!"

"No, I'm not," she said, looking at him. He looked at her, his smile fading.

"Oh, c'mon," he said. "What have I done now? It's me, isn't it? Me, the Doctor, Time Lord, TARDIS… ringing any bells?"

"But you're not really," she cut in. "You're… not really him."

"Of course he is," Donna cut in. "He just 'ad a face lift."

"It isn't just that," Rose snapped. "It's your personality. You're… weird. You've got a bow tie on, and a tweed jacket, like some kinda... nerdy... freak thing," she finished lamely.

"'Nerdy freak thing'?" the Doctor said, looking insulted. "Nerdy freak thing? You travel the universe with me, see sights no one else ever sees, and not only do you come out with that bigoted tripe but you actually can't even string a decent insult together? I mean, blimey!" he said, slapping his forehead. "did you spend time with an army of chavs in that parallel world? Delinquent chavs who think the height of insulting someone with Ginger hair is to call them Ron Weasley? Which by the way makes no sense as an insult because Ron Weasley is a famous book character and the actor who plays him is incredibly rich and... Sorry, what was I saying?"

"Something about chavs," Donna supplied helpfully.

"Yes chavs!" the Doctor said. "The point being, you're better than insults, Rose Tyler!"

"You're wearing a bow tie," Rose insisted. "I mean that's just sad."

"Bow ties are cool," the Doctor countered, his face looking more than a little miffed. "And it isn't like I didn't change before."

"Yeah, but that was from big ears to the hottest model in the catalogue," Rose muttered. Donna heard this, and then she snapped.

"Hang on – you've seen him do it before, and you're still going on about it?" she said, confused now to high heck. "Did it not register the first time, or was he just too sexy for complaints back then?"

"It isn't like that…" Rose said, but then the Doctor snapped.

"Oh I bet it is." His eyes were cold now. "You cross dimensions – probably with some kind of primitive device to literally rip them open, that Earth could do no better – then complain when I perform a natural function of my biology!"

Rose glared at him. "I didn't like it before, either."

"That was understandable," the Doctor said. "Big ears didn't explain well enough. Pinstripe and converse was too enthusiastic on arrival…"

"You even talk about them as if they were different people!" Rose interrupted. "This isn't the Doctor I fell in love with! You aren't the Doctor I fell in love with!"

"I am the Doctor," the Doctor said. "And I change. I told you that before. You understood that. I was dying, I regenerated. I can't change back. Old ground!" he shouted, exasperated. "Tell me what the problem is with that!"

Rose looked at him, her eyes welling up.

"You gave up on me before as well," he added softly. "That hurt me, Rose. I thought you would have known that. Don't you think that this hurts? That not believing me hurts?"

"Don't you think him dying hurts?" she snapped back.

"But he didn't die!" Donna put in. "That's him there, in the tweed thing!"

"But it isn't!" Rose shouted. "And that is the point! My Doctor's dead forever, AGAIN! I'm never going to see the man I love again! And all I have now is a weirdo who thinks a bow tie is the height of fashion!"

"If I might interrupt," a smooth, augmented voice put in. And the three time travellers looked upon Davros, watching them with a grin upon his wrinkled face. "Doctor, much as your petty personal affair do not interest me," the creator of the Daleks added, "might I direct your attention, to the first tests of my reality bomb instead."

A screen opened up, and the Doctor looked up, along with his companions.

And the test began. 


	5. Chapter 5

He felt violently, physically sick, as though someone was punching him in the gut a good few dozen times. He had just watched a good few dozen people get disintegrated by Davros' "Reality Bomb", which was about as close to an absolute perversion of nature as he had ever seen, but that wasn't why he felt sick. He felt sick because he was still regenerating, and even as he thought about it, he vomited more regenerative energy.

The only thing he felt regarding Davros' machine and his tests and the _murder_ of those innocent people was a feeling of intense anger. Intense, but very cold anger. He would not rant or rave. He would be very, very _quiet_ about the whole thing.

"A successful demonstration," Davros concluded, his voice calm and collected, as if he had just watched a simple experiment. Which to him it was, of course. To Davros, the Doctor had long ago realised, everything that wasn't Dalek was simply an abstraction, an enemy or an experiment opportunity, to be analysed and exterminated.

"Dissolved the electrical fields holding matter together," the Doctor said, the process fairly simple by comparison to some Time Lord sciences. "Which I imagine you then transmit, destroying - well, everything."

"What, like the whole universe?" Donna asked, clearly terrified at the prospect.

"Bigger," the Doctor said.

"Indeed," Davros smiled, insanity in every little pull of his facial muscles. "The transmission will break through the rift at the Medusa Cascade…"

"Destroying everything, everywhere," the Doctor concluded. "Nothing would survive. No parallels, no anything. Impressive on a technical level, I must admit," he added, making Rose glare at him, "but insane. Absolutely insane."

"What makes you say that?" Davros asked, grinning madly. "Sanity, Doctor, is a limit on genius. As Dalek Caan would probably tell you."

At that, the Doctor looked over at Dalek Caan. Ever since arriving here, the last of the Cult Of Skaro ha been disturbingly quiet. Too quiet. So quiet in fact that the Doctor was tempted to ask if he was still alive. Instead he looked at Davros.

"I suppose 'sanity is a limit on genius' is a handy excuse for being mad enough to create so many weapons of genocide, Dave," the Doctor said, the cold anger still tingeing his voice.

"Genocide is the ultimate power, Doctor," Davros replied softly.

The Doctor gave him a look that Donna couldn't read.

"Understand, Davros," he said, "that when I get out of here, I'll prove how wrong you are."

"Your petty, limited views disappoint me, Doctor," Davros smiled. "And now the successful test has been completed, it is time to begin final transmission."

The Doctor looked worriedly at Rose and Donna.

"I'll be honest," he whispered at them, "I've got nothing here. I don't know how we can stop him."

"Well that's great, you're just useless, aren't ya?" Rose muttered.

"Yes, thank you!" the Doctor snapped. "Anything constructive?"

"Charlie boy's been quiet," Donna said, pointing at Dalek Caan, and the Doctor looked at him.

"I noticed," he replied, nodding. "You notice that Davros?"

"What?" Davros asked, looking at the Doctor.

"Dalek Caan's been keeping schutm, hasn't he?" the Doctor pointed out, raising his eyebrows as he looked at the maddened Dalek. Davros tilted his head, considering this for a long moment.

"Perhaps you have a point," he conceded. "Dalek Caan?"

"Wrong," the last Cult member said. "All this is wrong."

The Doctor tilted his head, looking at Caan with a new confusion evident in his face.

"You alright, Caan-y boy?" he asked.

"Wrong," Caan said. "Wrong. All is wrong. This is wrong. Time is wrong." Before the Doctor could ask further about what the insane former Cult of Skaro member meant, however, a Dalek called out into the vault.

"Alert!" it barked. "Incoming transmission from planet Earth!"

And with that, Martha Jones from UNIT appeared, and the Doctor smiled, realising that his old friend was still in the fight. Good old Martha. Suit and converse - how easily he compartmentalised his past, but that wasn't important right now - really had been very harsh to her when she first started, something he really should apologise properly for one of these days. He shook his head clear as she spoke, demanding to see the Doctor.

"He is right here, child," Davros said, using his good arm to indicate the Doctor, who waved sheepishly.

"Hello, Martha," he said.

"Doctor?" she yelled. "You've... changed?"

"Daleks can apparently aim now," he said, still sheepish. "I know, it was a surprise to me, too. Quite a painful one at that."

"Much as explaining Time Lord biology would be fascinating," Davros put in, "I would like to begin conducting my tests and I assume, Miss Jones, that you have demands?"

With that, Martha explained the Osterhagen key to the assembled humans, Kaleds, Daleks and Time Lord. Weapons that would annihilate Earth. The Doctor's eyes widened in shock, as he felt Donna stare at him. Had he made Martha that? Rose was grinning her approval of the plan - Rose who had been carrying a massive gun. The Doctor looked at Donna, who didn't seem to know what to think.

Just then, another transmission came, this time from within the Crucible itself. And to the Doctor's amazement, it was Captain Jack, Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie.

"Hey Doctor!" Jack called. "Good to see you!"

The Doctor frowned. He had expected Jack to come rescue him, not find a bunch more people. But what was important right now was the fact that Captain Jack was holding a warp star. As the Doctor watched, he explained that he had it wired up. One false move from the Daleks and he'd detonate.

Except he never got the chance. The Doctor knew the old "keep them talking while you foil their schemes" trick of old but he never imagined it would be used against him. But there it was, all his friends - and the TARDIS - were teleported to the Vault. More than one of them looked at him in confusion.

"Ah, now we see the truth of the Doctor," Davros said, a mad grin once again gracing his features as he surveyed the captured associates of the Doctor. "You may rail at me for making the Daleks, Doctor, but this is what you created. Your Children of Time, turned into weapons. Are you proud?"

The Doctor looked at Davros, and then, unexpectedly, he smiled.

"You know," he said, his tone of voice exceptionally light, "it just occurred to me that there's a certain friend of mine isn't here. A friend that's going to be vitally important to me."

"_Going_ to be? What friend?" Davros asked, not quote following.

"A very important one," the Doctor said, and he smiled, and looked over at a small computer bank. Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and a large haze of smoke.

The Crucible systems started shutting down, as if someone was pressing buttons, albeit haphazardly. And then a few bolts of energy shot out from the smoke haze, taking out the force fields holding the Doctor and his companions in place. With that, Jack and Mickey ran to the TARDIS to retrieve the large laser weapons from earlier.

And as the haze cleared, the Doctor sauntered up to it with a slight grin.

And out of the haze stepped a woman - somewhere around forty-ish, tall, with long curly hair. She smiled at the Doctor, almost playfully, and then spoke.

"Hello Sweetie." 


End file.
